TheNgaro are anAustralian Aboriginal group of people who traditionally inhabited theWhitsunday Islands and coastal regions ofQueensland, employing aseafaring lifestyle in an area thatarchaeologically shows evidence of human habitation since 9000 BP.[1][2] Ngaro society was destroyed by warfare with traders, colonists, and the AustralianNative Police. TheNative Police Corps forcibly relocated the remaining Ngaro people in 1870 to a penal colony onPalm Island or to the lumber mills ofBrampton Island as forced labourers.
There is some doubt about the status of the language, now extinct, of the Ngaro people. It may have been the same as theWiri language orGiya language (both dialects ofBiri), or a separate dialect.[3]
According toNorman Tindale, Ngaro territory amounted to some 520 square kilometres (200 sq mi), fromWhitsunday andCumberland islands, ranging over Cumberland Islands and including the coastal mainland areas aroundCape Conway. Their inland extension reached as far as the mountains to the east ofProserpine.[4] Tindale's mapping was influential but is contested by descendants of several related groups in the area.[5][a][2]South Molle Island was an importantquarry for materials used in stone manufacture, and Nara Inlet onHook Island affords archaeologists insights into the earliest Ngaro habitation in this area.
TheGia people and language have also been assigned Ngaro as a synonym, and vice versa, but it appears that the Gia lived on the mainland.
As of 2020[update], theTraditional Owner Reference Group consisting of representatives of theYuwibara,Koinmerburra,Barada Barna,Wiri, Ngaro, and thoseGia andJuru people whose lands are within Reef Catchments Mackay Whitsunday Isaac region, helps to supportnatural resource management and look after thecultural heritage sites in the area.[7]
The Ngaro were divided intokin groups; the name of at least one is known:
Whitsunday Island formed the centre of Ngaro life, furnishing the only permanent area of habitation.[8] The Ngaro were noted for their distinctive sewn three-piece canoes, crafted fromironbark and known aswinta. Despite assertions, notably byAlfred Cort Haddon, thatoutrigger technology never reached further down the east Queensland coast that 300 miles north of Whitsunday Islands,[b] the entries in CaptainJames Cook'sEndeavour journals prove that by 1770, the first contact date with Europeans, outriggers were already employed in this area.[9]On these the Ngaro made their journeys and fishing expeditions, sailing not only about the islands in their immediate area but covering an estimated 100 kilometres in and along the reefs, including those betweenSt.Bees andHayman Island, reefs which they knew intimately.[4][8] Ngaro oral accounts are consistent throughout the historical record in their description of seasonal visits to theGreat Barrier Reef, 43 miles from the mainland and 25 miles from the nearest island, in their canoes.[10]
Their diet consisted ofsea turtles,flying foxes, fowls,wild cherries,Burdekin plum,damson berries,trochus shells, baler shells,green ant andcockatoo apples.[8] They also hunted large sea mammals such as small whales from these canoes. This was only possible due to their development of barbedharpoon technology that enabled the Ngaro to kill their prey by exhausting them rather than bleeding them to death, which would attractsharks to compete for the catch.
The Ngaro traded with the mainland, and their artifacts such asbaler shells for carrying water, andjuan knives fashioned from rock at South Molle, which had one of the largest of such pre-European quarries in Australia, found their way a good distance inland and far up the coast.[11][1]
The earliest archaeological evidence for habitation in the area has been found at Nara Inlet onHook Island.[12] Cave openings and nearby mounds, ormiddens, of oyster-like shells are still visible in the steep slopes of Nara Inlet.
The painting of a hashed oval shape is often presumed to be a sea turtle shell, a prominent food source for the Ngaro and Aboriginal people of the mainland. However, it may represent the fruit of thepandanus plant and its seed.[citation needed]
Early settler accounts suggest that the Ngaro population consisted of about 100 people, which represents an island population density of roughly one person per 98 hectares (240 acres). They may have been decimated through early contacts by disease, but this figure still represents a comparatively high figure.[8] Derrick Stone writes of their fate as white colonisation penetrated their area:
Warfare, colonist expansion, disease and theNative Police Corps made their existence tenuous but the Aborigines' final downfall came in 1870 when they were forcibly relocated to amission settlement on Palm Island and others to Brampton Island to work in timber mills.[13]
Memories of old songs sung in a mixture of Ngaro andBiri are still recalled by descendants.[14]